Podcasts for Learning & Development Professionals

I find podcasts an interesting and easy way to stay abreast of trends and developments in Learning and Development (L&D). When scrolling through episodes of one of my regular podcasts recently I noticed a “You Might Also Like” feature on the Podcast app which suggested other podcasts that I might be interested in. This has nudged me to expand my listening menu. I’ve subscribed to the set below (some old favourites, mandy new) and am listening consciously to several episodes of each podcast with the intent of writing a review.

I started this process about a week ago and have two immediate observations. The first is that it’s easy to identify ‘hot topics’ in the industry as they are being covered by different podcasts. These topics include Virtual Reality, curation and xAPI. The second is that a varied listening diet is healthy. Although there may be some common topics, each podcast brings different perspectives to it based on the people who feature on the podcast and the style or tone of the show.

Please let me know if there are other L&D podcasts you like to listen to so I can try them out too.

Hi Michelle,
We got a real kick seeing our podcast mentioned by you. Hope you have enjoyed an episode or two. It’s early days for us, but the greatest thing I think so far we have taken away from it, is it’s pushing us to explore our own thinking more – as we have to try and articulate our own thoughts and practice; we’re definitaly learning more from others outside of our ‘inner circle’; and the left of field connections and cross polination across industry is great too. The activity in itself is valuable for our team from a PD point of view, and I guess there is the exposure side of it too of course, which we really hope others are getting value out of it. Just thought I would share!
Thanks again, Brenden.

There clearly a lot involved in putting a podcast together and it’s a big commitment. I can already hear some technical improvements in quality of sound on Learning Hook podcast. Any form of ‘working out loud’ / learning out loud will push you to think and learn – and has the potential to be helpful to others in their learning. It’s great to hear some Aussie voices in the L&D podcasting space as well, adding to the diversity across the podcast sphere.

Thank you for taking on the challenge that so that I and others in our field may learn from and with you.
Michelle